


22 Theories

by CrimeAlley1048



Category: Batfamily - Fandom, Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8998288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeAlley1048/pseuds/CrimeAlley1048
Summary: Christmas Eve with the Waynes





	

Total honesty? Christmas was hard, and it wasn’t like the rest of the year had been easy. It was the ceremony of the thing, as far as Duke could tell— there was a way he was used to doing Christmas, and it just wasn’t going to happen anymore. Mostly because his parents…

  
Well, you know. Duke missed his parents.

  
At the very least, he was surrounded by people that seemed to get it when he explained that he just wasn’t that excited for the holidays. Most of them had first hand experience with the whole no-parents thing, after all.

  
“Yeah, I hid in the laundry room for most of Christmas Eve.” Dick passed a plate of bacon across the breakfast table. “I didn’t want to look at the lights anymore, you know?”

  
“Why the laundry room?”

  
“Because I’m pretty sure that to this day, Bruce doesn’t know where it is. Ask him when he gets here.”

  
Duke nodded. That was probably fair.

  
“Listen the point is, we get it, and we know it’s hard. Christmas is usually a family thing, right? It was for me. And if you don’t think of us as your family yet, that’s fine… but we’re here if it’s what you want.”

  
To Duke’s left, Jason pulled his face out of his mug of coffee long enough to mutter, “That’s not what you want.” Dick shot him a look, then turned back to Duke.

  
“ _Anyway_. Don’t worry about it. You’re welcome here as long as you want to be, and if something changes with your parents, you can always opt out. You can leave whenever you want.”

  
Jason laughed. “If only.”

  
“I’m not talking to you.”

  
“Again, if only.”

  
“What about our relationship makes you think I won’t punch you right now?”

  
Jason fished a gun out of the inside of his jacket and winked while the rest of the table erupted in outrage. Tim and Cass both lunged out of the line of fire, Tim yelling angrily. Dick pulled a knife out of a pile of silverware like he really did intend to fight Jason then and there— Duke has seen it before, and it wouldn’t have surprised him. He wasn’t particularly keen on being caught in the middle of that again.

  
Luckily for him, Bruce choose that moment to make his entrance, Damian trailing in behind him. The gun immediately vanished back into Jason’s jacket, and the rest of the table relaxed, apparently united under the unspoken agreement that Bruce didn’t need to know about what had just happened.

  
They did that a lot, Duke was noticing. Damian slid into the open space on his right without any kind of ‘good morning’ (not that Duke expected one), while Bruce set a stack of newspapers on the table. Tim grabbed for the one on top.

  
“Anything interesting?” They were expecting a storm. Holidays were dangerous, according to the others, and Christmas hardly ever passed without an incident. Breakfast on Christmas Eve was technically a strategy session, or at least that’s what they were all pretending. Duke wasn’t sure.

  
Bruce shook his head. “Not in that one.” He dug a tabloid-style bifold out of the pile, opened it to an article, and handed it to Dick.

  
“The Wayne Heirs: Twenty-Two Theories,” Dick read. “Nice.”

  
“Oh God,” said Tim.

  
“This ought to be good.” Dick folded the paper and began to read out loud. “It’s that time of year again, folks: Bruce Wayne has another kid.” He flipped the article around to show Duke a large picture of himself and Bruce exiting the lobby of Wayne Tower, a hundred stories underneath where they were now.

“While it’s a little unclear if Duke Thomas, age 16, will remain at Wayne Manor permanently, considering Wayne’s track record, we’re inclined to think he will. The billionaire’s other children include Dick Grayson, the deceased Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Cassandra Cain, and the youngest, Damian Wayne. Mr. Wayne’s reputation as a serial adopter has long been established in this city, leading many citizens to ask a simple question— why? Here are our theories.”

  
Dick skimmed through the next few pages, scanning the article. “And then they’ve got the normal bit about how we’re good for business… we’re all biologically his, and he doesn’t want to admit it… lovely… oh, he kidnapped us.”

  
Jason nodded. “That’s true.”

  
“Shut up,” Dick told him. “We were artificially produced in a Wayne Enterprises lab— there we go, that’s much more fun— or Bruce is being blackmailed by the foster system, or our birth parents are… in witness protection?”

  
“Seriously?” Tim asked. “That’s not even close to believable. Who wrote this?”

  
“Or Bruce rescues children from a cult,” continued Dick, flipping another page. “Alright that one isn’t totally wrong.”

  
“Half credit?” Tim suggested.

  
“Raise your hand if you were a member of a cult.” Dick held up two fingers for Cass and Jason, whose hands were both up, then stared expectantly at Damian.

  
Damian buttered a piece of toast. “I was a leader of a cult. Different thing.”

  
“Okay, Damian.”

  
“The kill count is higher for leaders,” Tim agreed.

  
Damian did not take that well; Duke had to duck out of the way as he launched his triangle of toast across the table like a throwing star. It hit Tim squarely between the eyes and bounced past an indifferent Bruce who continued to pour syrup on his pancakes like his children weren’t fighting right in front of him.

  
“Really?” Tim asked him, leaning across the table. “Nothing?”

 

Bruce shook his head. “You deserved that.”

  
“Thank you,” said Damian, grinning. “Would somebody please remind Drake of the family motto?”

  
“That’s not the family—”

  
Bruce didn’t get to finish before Jason cheerfully cut in with, “Talk shit, get hit, Timothy.”

  
That was a common joke, but Bruce never thought it was funny. He preferred the motto engraved on the Manor gate (something about honor, Duke thought, or maybe truth). Bruce had a thing about keeping tradition.

  
“I’m disowning you all.”

  
“Finally,” Damian muttered.

  
“Don’t you start.”

  
Tim shrugged. “Well it was fun while it lasted.”

  
“Speak for yourself,” said Jason, pouring himself another cup of coffee. “Pass the toast?”

  
Duke passed it to him. “You’re on a roll today, aren't you?”

  
“They keep setting me up, and— I’m sure this is shocking— I don’t want to be here. I only came in the first place because Cass threatened to break my legs if I didn’t show.”  
Cass shot him a thumbs up from across the table.

  
“Yeah thanks, Cass.”

  
Duke wasn’t quite ready to believe that— Jason didn’t do things unless he wanted to do them. He’d been around long enough to figure that out. Maybe that was what the holidays looked like around here, Duke figured: lots of fighting and “strategy sessions” where the only thing strategic was keeping Tim and Damian on opposite sides of the table. Not that it was helping.

  
“Is it always like this?” he asked.

  
“Always,” Bruce nodded. “Merry Christmas.”

**Author's Note:**

> Duke Thomas is an exclusively n52/rebirth character, but the day I acknowledge n52 backstories is the day I meet Jesus, so the rest of them are keeping their original timelines. Also Tim is supposed to be fake-dead just now, but for whatever reason, he isn't. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Merry Christmas, y'all.


End file.
